Cork councillors angered over representation on new county policing body

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

One of County Cork’s eight Municipal Districts (MD) won’t be represented on a new body being set up to replace the old Joint Policing Committees in each local authority area as the Department of Justice has mandated that each Local Community Safety Partnership (LCSP) can only have seven councillors as members.

The department says the LCSPs will “prioritise the voice of local people in identifying and addressing community safety issues in collaboration with a broad range of relevant stakeholders,” including local councillors, An Garda Síochána, community representatives, business and education representatives, and statutory agencies such as the HSE.

At this week’s meeting of Cobh MD, councillors voiced their concern that one of the county’s MDs won’t have an elected member to represent it on the County Cork LCSP. Cllr Anthony Barry described it as “a ridiculous situation.”

“It's another example again of how Cork because of its size gets screwed over. I mean you can’t compare Cork county with the likes of Leitrim or Longford. No disrespect to Longford but it is essentially only a glorified Municipal District of Cork, that's the size and scale you’re talking about. I think it's grossly unfair that an MD won't have a representative,” he said.

Cllr Cathal Rasmussen, who chaired the county’s Joint Policing Committee, said that “from what I can see none of the parties [nationally] are happy with it because it's caused issues all over the place. People and different parties made submissions, there were suggestions about setting up all sorts of things and there were different variations and the department said no. In the end the department or whoever came out with this proposal.”

“There’ll be seven [elected] members of a 30-person committee. Cork County Council will have to fund and provide all the resources and the facilities so it's a very different setup than it was in the past. We’re going to nominate somebody [to be on the LCSP], yet that person may not even be on it. That means the Cobh municipal area has no say or no input into it, which doesn't sound right,” he said.

Cllr Sinead Sheppard said it “beggars belief” that one of the county’s MDs won’t be represented. “At a time when law and order is really at a low point in the country and at a point where we're crying out for extra Guards, extra resources, more people on the beat. And now you're talking about having a committee as important as that and a Municipal District being left out of it. We're in absolutely turbulent times in the country and the county should be represented accordingly on our policing committees.”

“Let's say Cobh doesn't have a voice on this and there's things being discussed and how will somebody from the West Cork Municipal District speak on our behalf? They don't have a clue what's going on in the Cobh Municipal District, the same way I don't have a clue what's going on in another district,” she said.

Cobh MD Officer Páraig Lynch said that “the advice we've been given is that each Municipal District will appoint a nominee and then it will be a matter for the [Cork County Council] corporate policy group to agree what seven would represent the elected members.”

The Cobh MD councillors agreed to nominate Cllr Rasmussen for the LCSP and also to bring a motion on the representation issue before a meeting of the full council.